1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of contact center technologies and, more particularly, identifying contact center agents based upon biometric characteristics of an agent's speech
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, contact center agents have been placed in operations centers where they work along side many other contact center agents. Each agent has operated from an agent-specific desktop, which includes a data terminal and phone connection. Contact center agents have been identified based upon a user name and password combination and/or based upon an identifier of a device (e.g., phone or terminal) used by the agent.
Conventionally, front end software that drives the agent desktop has been part of a vendor-specific solution that connects the agent to contact center backend components, which are also vendor-specific. The protocols, hardware, and software used by the different vendors have historically been incompatible with one another, requiring all contact center components to be those of a single vendor.
In a related application (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/680,304 entitled “IMPLEMENTING A CONTACT CENTER USING OPEN STANDARDS AND NON-PROPRIETARY COMPONENTS”), Applicants have disclosed an open contact center which describes a technique for implementing a contact center based upon open standards, which are independent upon any specific vendor. An open contact center permits interactions to occur using standard hardware and software devices. For example, an agent can interact with contact center components using standard telecommunication devices, such as a SIP based phone and/or a HTTP based browser. Use of standards based hardware can permit contact center agents to work outside a centralized operations center. That is, in an open contact center environment, contact center agents can seamlessly work from remote locations, such as from their home or from geographically separated small office locations. Basically, agents of an open contact center would be able to work from any location so long as a network connection exists that permits them to communicate with the open contact center backend system.
Further, use of open standards within a contact center combined with an ability to integrate geographically distributed agents can create an opportunity for independent knowledge brokers to sell their services to one or more contact centers. For example, a doctor, lawyer, computer technician, and the like, can work from their own office and sell their services by the hour to many different contact centers. These contact centers benefit because they do not have to employ skilled agent on a full time basis, but can instead dynamically obtain services of the independent knowledge brokers as needed. Customers benefit as well by being granted access to a large pool of skilled professionals. Knowledge brokers are provided with a new competitive market in which they can sell their skills.
Conventional agent identifying techniques lack a fraud resistant means of identifying an agent. That is, basing agent identity solely on a user name or device identity (i.e., conventional identification techniques) can be easily spoofed by dishonest agents. For example, an agent could initially authenticate themselves with a contact center and then substitute a representative to handle calls in their place. Callers, and/or the call center would remain unaware of the substitution, which could result in an unqualified or untrained call center agent handling customer issues. Further, a contact center could be paying a premium for an agent believed to have exceptional skills, when in fact a substitute, who would normally be paid at a lower rate, is handling calls.